Pear & Maple Glazed Chicken Pizza

I think I'm gonna start making pizzas more often. A few weeks ago I made a chicken and sweet mini peppers pizza from scratch and it was way better than anything you would get at a restaurant, except maybe that one place.

There's plenty of ways to improve this recipe, but I just had to work with what was available to me at the time, and I loved the way it turned out. Fresh, nutty and nutritious.

Pizza crust:

• 1 cup all purpose flour;
• 1 cup whole wheat flour;
• a pinch of salt;
• garlic powder to taste;
• Italian seasoning to taste;
• 1 teaspoon sugar;
• 1 envelope instant yeast;
• 3 tablespoons olive oil;
• 3/4 cup warm water.

Directions:

Combine all of the dry ingredients including yeast, make a well in the middle, add in the water and olive oil, prepare the dough.
This was actually the first time I used instant yeast and it worked well, I think it is a great alternative to traditional yeast when it comes to making pizzas since it can greatly reduce the time needed for dough to rise.
I made two smallish pizzas with the amount of these ingredients, however you can make a large one.

Pizza toppings:

• white pizza sauce (no specified amount as some people love a lot of sauce on their pizza, we prefer to go lightly on it, if I had to guess, I probably used about 1/2 cup of sauce for 2 small pizzas I made);
• 1 chicken breast (boiled and sliced);
• 1 pear (deseeded and sliced);
• a handful of chopped walnuts;
• 2 cloves of garlic;
• 6 slices Swiss cheese;
• maple syrup for glaze;
• fresh cilantro for garnish.

Directions:

Sprinkle some yellow cornmeal or flour on a baking sheet. Roll out the dough and start assembling your pizza. Preheat your oven to 350 F and bake for about 20 minutes or until you start noticing the edges of the pizza turn golden brown. Glaze chicken, pear slices and walnuts with maple syrup and top with fresh cilantro.
Serve hot, keep leftovers refrigerated.

If you happen to have some fresh mozzarella cheese I would highly recommend using it instead of Swiss cheese, even though I do like both kinds, I feel like fresh mozzarella is a better fit for the ingredients, also ricotta cheese would make a great addition/substitution.

I was afraid that boiled chicken would dry out in the oven while the pizza was getting baked, but it actually was fine and not chewy or hard, if you wish you can drizzle some maple syrup or olive oil on top of it prior to sending it to the oven to make sure the meat doesn't get too dry.

The images were taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark III and a Canon EF - 50mm - F/1.8 lens.